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Tina and Kurt were never close friends. They were friends, sure, spent more than enough afternoons together in the St. Rita Cancer Ward, waiting for their mothers to be ready for their visits, developing an eye for fashion from the Vogue magazines in said waiting rooms, but they weren’t the type of friends to confide in each other. Kurt had never even outright told her he was gay, and she had been his beard. They never talked about their moms’ diagnoses, and by the time Kurt was ready, Tina wasn’t sure he even remembered she had been there.
“My mom was sick around the same time as Elizabeth, she was just lucky enough to recover, but I sort of know what you’re going through.”
“No you don’t. Nobody does. I’m not - Tina, you love your mom, right?” Tina nodded. Why would Kurt even question that? “You’re happier now that she’s not dying of cancer than you were when she was hospitalized?”
“Of course!” Tina was shocked Kurt would ask such a question.
“You’re a good person. I’m- I’m not. I just don’t - it’s not that I don’t love my mom, but she’s been dead for more of my life than she was alive for, and of the parts she was alive for, all my happiest memories of her are from when she was sick.”
Tina thought that made sense. She had been even younger than Kurt when her mom had gotten sick and could barely remember the few memories she had of Before The Cancer. “That’s understandable. They’re the only memories you have.”
“No. I have earlier memories of my mom. They’re just not…” Kurt took a swallow of water.
Tina remembered what her therapist had told her, when she was struggling after having learned that her birth parents were dead. "You don’t have to explain yourself, Kurt. You’re entitled to all your feelings.” A deep breath, deep enough Tina could see Kurt’s chest heave, then Kurt spoke.
“My mom used to love giving me baths. I hated it. Sometimes I think I might still be in the bath, that this entire life has just been one long daydream and she’ll be staring at me with a washcloth explaining how I still hadn’t cleaned myself properly down there.” That was not what Tina thought Kurt would have to say about his mother. Down there, as in, she molested him!? Tina couldn’t imagine, felt sick at the thought.
“I - that’s - I think I’d prefer my mom hospitalized too, if that was how she treated me when we were at home.”
“I don’t - she loved me. I shouldn’t be so freaked out by - I shouldn’t talk about this, I sound creepy and weird and I’m a man, she was my mom…”
“Kurt. Look at me. Whatever you feel, that’s how you should feel. You can’t control your feelings; they exist to help control your actions. You can feel however you feel about your mom; she won’t know. She’s dead!”
“She loved me.”
“That doesn’t make molesting you okay!”
“What’s this about molesting?” Ms. Pillsbury had been walking by at that moment, just in time to hear Tina almost shout at Kurt.
“N-nothing.” Tina stuttered, trying to take back what she had said. Kurt drank more water. Ms. Pillsbury stared at Tina, trying to discern her truthfulness, but Tina maintained defiant eye contact. She wasn’t a victim.
“That was close.” Kurt said, wiping water off his mouth with his sleeve. “Let’s never talk about this again.”
“Okay. Want to help me sew more sequins onto the costumes?” The two didn’t talk about serious problems again, and soon enough Kurt was busy dodging locker slams and hiding the fact he had been threatened with death. Kurt left. Tina couldn’t blame him at all.
Rachel Berry couldn’t claim the same. Nor could Finn, and Tina almost rolled her eyes at their complaining about Kurt inviting a Warbler to Finn’s home, as if it weren’t also Kurt’s.
“And he’s gotten so absorbed in these Warblers that he doesn’t even spend any time with my mom anymore! Like she talked about how Kurt saved her wardrobe at the wedding, but now he’s avoiding her!”
“Kurt’s avoiding Carole? Did she do anything?” The words escaped Tina’s mouth and soon the entire club was looking at her and Tina remembered why she never talked. She couldn’t stand that level of scrutiny, and she reached for Mike’s hand for comfort.
“No. What could she have possibly done? Kurt lives at that Gay Hogwarts of his, he only comes home on the weekends.”
“Kurt might just be wary - afraid Carole might try to replace his birth mom.” Tina couldn’t say anything more than that without violating Kurt’s trust. She shouldn’t have said anything and didn’t for the remainder of Glee.
Finn was confused. Why would Kurt think his mom wanted to replace his birth mom? Burt hadn’t replaced Finn’s birth father - he couldn’t, he was dead! Finn asked his mom if she and Kurt had gone out recently, only to be told no, Kurt was busy with school. Finn was slightly annoyed with Kurt - their parents gave up their honeymoon for Kurt, couldn’t Kurt at least spend a little time with Carole?
The next Friday night Finn cornered Kurt after dinner in Kurt’s room. Kurt had been polite, but seemed on edge, avoiding eye contact with not only Carole but also Burt.
“Dude, have you been avoiding my mom?”
“Don’t call me dude, Finn. No, I’ve been busy. Dalton is a lot harder than McKinley.”
“Bullshit. You had time to go out with Mercedes and Tina on Thursday, you could’ve spent some time with my mom one of these days instead.”
“I’ll talk to her about it. What are you doing in my room, anyway?”
“Talking to you! Am I not allowed to talk to my own brother?”
“Alright, well, we’re talking. Do you want me to go make you some warm milk?”
“I’ll go down with you.” Finn hoped Kurt would bump into their parents downstairs. Finn was never the most socially aware, but something was weird about how Kurt was behaving, and Finn wanted to know what.
“So what did you want to talk about?” Kurt asked, pouring milk into two mugs and preheating the oven. Somehow the oven always made the milk taste better than a microwave.
“I dunno, you’ve just been really distant lately. Like yeah, the whole Karofsky situation sucked, but you seem on guard even here, in your own home. Does Dalton have a guidance counselor or anything?” Kurt had gone tense when Finn mentioned Karofsky. Both of their parents knew, but Finn still thought it had been normal bullying, just typical violent homophobia.
“I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t need a guidance counselor.”
“Okay, okay. What have you been learning about at Dalton?” With that question, Finn was subjected to a long discussion on how more in-depth Dalton was with world history than McKinley, how Dalton’s math classes made Kurt miss McKinley because there he at least understood what was being discussed.
As they were drinking their milk, Carole entered the kitchen.
“Oh, it’s so nice to see my two boys hanging out together!” Kurt’s smile turned stiff, fake, as he placed his mug on the table. Finn didn’t understand what was going on. Kurt barely understood himself why he felt like there was a wall of glass between his mind and the rest of the world.
“Yeah, Kurt was just telling me all about Dalton. Kurt?”
“Yeah, so I don’t have enough room in my schedule to continue learning French, so I’ve dropped that. But for the most part I’m just really busy, and that’s why I haven’t had much family time recently.”
“Well, we could change that now!” Carole suggested. “Burt’s busy working on invoices for the shop, but the three of us could watch a movie?”
“Okay.” Kurt nodded without thinking about it. Finn sat in the armchair, leaving Kurt and Carole on the couch. Kurt tried to make it seem natural, how he was curling away from the older woman, and wasn’t really listening as Finn insisted they watch some new horror movie. Kurt agreed to watch it.
The movie had a scene where the little boy is naked in the bathtub, playing innocently, as his mom left the room to take a phone call. Kurt couldn’t breathe. He remembered being that young, wishing he could be left alone, and Kurt didn’t notice the monster was attacking the boy on-screen, or that Carole was scooching closer to try to comfort Kurt the way she usually comforted Finn when he was scared as a child. The first Kurt noticed was a hand on his shoulder, nails painted, and why was she touching him?
“Kurt? You okay, sweetheart?” Carole paused the movie. Kurt couldn’t say a word, not when the word sweetheart was echoing around his brain, not when Carole was close enough Kurt could feel her breasts against him, and she was being maternal, she let Kurt go when she realized he wasn’t calming down the way Burt would’ve, the way Finn did. Kurt curled in on himself, unable to discern the words being spoken his direction were ones of concern for him, not the words that had been aimed his way years prior, concerned with getting caught.
“Sweetheart, we can’t tell Daddy about this; he thinks Mommy needs to save all her love for him, but Mommy has more than enough love for the both of us. Kiss Mommy now.” Kurt had, Kurt had allowed a tongue to enter his mouth and his mom’s body had brushed against his. Carole wasn’t sure what was going on. Neither was Finn.
“Dude, Kurt, you need to breathe slower, you’re gonna pass out. It’s just a movie, you’re safe here.”
“No.” Kurt finally spoke, and Carole was on the brink of tears, unsure what had triggered that reaction or why her leaning closer in case Kurt said something else was met with Kurt trying to meld into the arm of the couch, unable to possibly get any further from the concerned woman.
“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Kurt let out an animalistic whine, part of his mind acutely aware of how horribly embarrassing this was, that he wasn’t actually five and he was with his stepmother and stepbrother. Carole tried again to get closer, worried Kurt might be ill or injured based on the way he was being.
“D-don’t touch me! Please!” Kurt’s eyes were closed, so he couldn’t see Carole immediately return to her side of the couch, nowhere near touching him. Kurt could feel, hear, he was somewhere between the present and past, between the bathtub and the couch with the breasts and the kissing and “No, Mommy, please, I don’t-”
Carole didn’t know what was happening, so she knocked on Burt’s office. Burt didn’t like being interrupted, but he loved his son more than anything in the world.
“Your mom’s dead, Kurt. That was Carole, she’s my mom, not your Mommy. You’re acting like a child; what the hell is going on?” Finn was standing in front of Kurt, convinced maybe the movie had hypnotized him. Kurt opened his eyes, blinking at the giant in front of him, who was evidently not Elizabeth Hummel.
“Finn? What-”
“What the hell was that? Why don’t you want my mom to touch you? What freaked you out so much?”
“Bathtub. I - My mom used to - I can’t talk about this. I’m going to bed.”
“Kurt, you’re gonna have to talk about this!” Finn shouted. Carole and Burt were surprised to find Kurt running past them down the stairs. Burt followed Kurt downstairs, equally as confused as Carole had been by his son’s behavior. That wasn’t an anxiety attack. That was - Carole described it as similar to her late husband’s PTSD flashbacks.
“Kurt? Bud? Can we talk?” Kurt had buried himself in a blanket burrito, crying.
“No.”
“I’m not giving you a choice here, buddy. You really scared Carole and Finn. What’s goin’ on?”
“I can’t tell you. You’ll hate me.” Kurt slapped his own mouth after he said that, wishing he had said nothing.
“Nothing on Earth could possibly make me hate you, Kurt. You know it’s always been the two of us against the world.”
“Not always. Before -”
“Before Mom died?”
“If you had to choose between me or her, could you?”
“Probably not, but what’s this have to do with you freaking out over the horror movie tonight?”
“It doesn’t matter, I’ll apologize to them both in the morning.”
“It does matter. Would you rather Carole come down here and you could apologize to her now? Maybe talk about whatever this is?” Kurt nodded. Burt walked upstairs and told Carole exactly that. Finn was trying to forget what happened with Kurt by finishing the movie.
“Kurt? What’s going on, sweetheart?” Kurt had been rearranging his blankets, and wrapped another one tighter around him.
“Don’t call me that.” Kurt hissed out, his voice guaranteed to crack after the crying he’d been doing.
“Sweetheart?” Kurt cringed, nodding. “Okay, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you didn’t like it. What’s wrong?”
“I don’t - I must’ve said something, upstairs, that made you worried enough to get my dad. I don’t remember - what did I say?”
“‘No, Mommy, please, I don’t-’ and then you cut yourself off, hyperventilating again. Was there something in the movie that reminded you of your mom?” Kurt nodded. Carole felt encouraged by the beginning of answers she was receiving, and asked Kurt another question, handing him a box of tissues. “What didn’t you want - can you remember what you meant by that?” Kurt blew his nose, nodding again. He tossed the tissue near the garbage, missing it.
“I - My mom - the bathtub, that’s what triggered me. She used to - if I tell you, can you promise never to tell my dad?”
“If that’s the only way you’ll talk about it, yes I promise I won’t tell Burt. He’s going to want to know, but I can tell him you threatened to stop coming home on weekends if I told him and he’ll back off.”
“You know him so well.” Kurt smiled, a welcome change from the fearful guarded look he had been wearing before. “So you promise?”
“I promise.” Carole knew whatever Kurt was about to tell her couldn’t be good, not if he had her promise multiple times to hide this from her husband.
“My mom - before she died, before - she always used to give me baths. She would help me, only at a certain point, it - it stopped being help. After Karofsky, after he forcibly kissed me, I started having memories of - that- that wasn’t the first time - that my mom” Kurt broke down into sobbing again. Carole couldn’t help, she knew by now touching Kurt would only make him more emotional, so she helplessly watched as he sobbed himself into a state where he was capable of speech again. Carole was already horrified by what Kurt was implying. She wanted to kill Elizabeth Hummel, a woman she had only ever heard kind words about until that night.
“My mom would touch me, and - and kiss me, like the way adults kiss, and my dad can’t know about this, please!”
“Kurt, he - why are you hiding this from him? Why do you let him mourn a woman who abused you?”
“He loves her, and he loves me, but I - she always said he’d hate me, if he knew. He’d be jealous, that she had enough love for the both of us, and - and I’m supposed to love my mom. I - what if he doesn’t believe me?”
“I could tell him? He’ll believe you, Kurt, but I know how difficult talking about something like this is, so if you can’t, I can tell him.”
“Yes, please, thank you Carole, I’m so sorry - I know you’d never hurt me, I just also still can’t really categorize what my mom did as hurt and so part of me is still scared you’ll - wait, you know how hard it is?” Carole nodded, tears streaming down her own face.
“That’s a story for another time. You’ve had a long night. Get some rest.” Kurt laid down on his bed, exhausted. Carole told Burt that night, in hushed, furious whispers, and Burt didn’t believe her initially, making Carole certain her decision to fight this battle for Kurt was the right one. Burt didn’t sleep at all that night, and in the morning, while Carole was hiding the bags from beneath her eyes, Burt apologized.
“My boy - he wouldn’t lie - I just - he hid that from me for ten years! I always tried to let him know he could tell me anything, even though I know in a town like this one he’s been hiding bullying for a while, but - I - I should look into counseling, see if any of those free clinics offer anything.”
“That’s a good idea.”